It’s strange how perspectives of life change suddenly after becoming a parent. Though I have not yet experienced this fortunate phenomenon which causes a sudden priority-shift in a person’s life, still there is no doubt that I am highly fascinated by idea of becoming a parent. Thanks to my friends who shared their experiences of becoming parents with me and yes there is nothing more novel and profound than becoming a father/mother of a child. They all agree on that.
You suddenly start behaving more responsibly and carefully, because you have to set an example for a new born. You start planning your future with more vigor than ever since you want the best possible life for your child. You start respecting and realizing the sacrifices of your own parents more, when you become one yourself. Parenthood, for me, is a second chance given to humans by nature to start their lives from scratch.
A recent survey of private schools, which I conducted with a friend who was looking for a school for his kid, had my eyes wide open. The child was not even going to get into a real class – if we consider 1st grade as the first “real” class – the kid has to go through the stages of Playgroup, Montessori, Kg, Nursery and Prep and God knows how many of them. To my surprise, the fee charges of Playgroup were only around 25 thousand. Yes, you read that right – it’s way more than the income of an average middle-class Pakistani. But isn’t that the ultimate criteria of responsible parenting in Pakistan? Getting your child into the best school possible? And the above mentioned amount is only the start, the tuition fee. Then there are the books, the co-curricular activities, expensive lunches, and many more protocols. These private schools use every trick in the book to extract money out of the parent’s pockets.
So, by the look of things, it’s clear that the organizations behind these so-called institutions mean purely “business”. How’s that for a reality check for a parent who, in his own mind, is fulfilling every responsibility of a good parent? But I guess it’s time to take this matter further and probe into it. But wait, this is just the start. Education is just one expense. There is the food they eat, their health, it’s about their sources of entertainment, and foremost, it’s about their future and security.
The words of Fredrick Douglass don’t fail to amuse me time and again; he says, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”. It’s almost as if he said this about our contemporary society. Unfortunately, we, as a nation, are brimming with broken men: whether they are our politicians who lead and decide about our lives, or protectors in the shape of police, or those who are responsible for dispensing justice, or those running our bureaucratic machinery. You may find some generosity, discipline and intent in some cases but overall we all know that corruption has taken root very deep in our society – very deep. So, my focus naturally gets tilted towards the youth, the infants, the toddlers, the teens, and it seems to be a far easier job to prepare them for the future than even thinking about fixing the broken ones.
Every parent reading this must ask him or herself a question: are we preparing our kids for the future? Getting them admitted into expensive schools and handing them the Xbox remote every time they need your attention? Feeding them with endless junk and sugary drinks? Bringing the world to their fingertips with Google, and hoping naively that they will use it only for educational purposes? 8 out of 10 parents are preparing their children for the future in the manner I just described – and I believed that’s not the right way.
For me, rather than preparing our kids for the future, we should prepare a future for our kids. Obviously, we do not want them to live in an insecure atmosphere where not even schools are safe. Their fates must not be written by corrupt politicians and their teachers must educate them with the right intentions.
Poland recently revised its schooling system completely, and, let me remind you, they already had a very decent one. There is a major policy shift in their syllabi, courses, and timings. In fact, it’s freer than ever. In short, if we review their reengineered schooling system, there are now less books and more practice. The point is that people and administrations around the world are becoming quite proactive in their perspectives regarding their children’s future.
I may not qualify to provide you with any parenting tips but one thing is for sure that we have to think out of the box for our kids. We cannot raise our kids in oblivion; they have to deal with the society which we know is already very tough to deal with. Because, when I see a concerned parent I feel for those who have no parents; when I see a concerned parent I feel for those 25 children out of school. Because in a society, everybody has to co-exist and the kind of individualism we are instilling in young minds will help them in their future. For me, there is only one way to go for parents: they must strive for a better society, they must take a stand on what is right, they must alter their future and, lastly, they must take time out of their own lives… for the love of their children.